Anyone else planning on riding off into the sunset after this season?

Absolutely with you on this.

CFB is slowly becoming harder to invested in. The wide open west of no rules is killing it for me. Schools are obviously tampering with players with no repercussions. Rivalries are dying with the realignments. Gone are the days of must watch games all day every Saturday (for me at least). Sorta like the Lions I’ll watch M play then move on after the game. We will always have the 2023 season to look back on though.

I don't know. I thought I would give up my season tickets after 2021. Then 2022...then this happened.  Next year will be different, we know we are going to lose but it is expected. Probably Texas. But who knows. It is hopefully still going to be fun. When it stops being fun, I will give up my tickets. But last year they became the best investment I ever had. After the great depression, what a Bull Run! Time to cash out? Maybe. But I've been in it for the long run. Let's see.

I think it's more of a "watching for entertainment" perspective. 

Example: in the past, I viewed everything with a "how does this help Michigan WIN?" eye. I hear people now talking about the idea of Orji at QB with a backfield of Mullings/The Don and running a Wing-T style power running game... and I'm intrigued.

The idea of the team attempting ~10 passes a game in 2024 and asserting their will physically would've scared the hell out of me a decade ago. 

Now? It's something new to see, it's intriguing. We aren't topping 2023 from an accomplishment/drama/happy ending standpoint... now I just want to see new things.

You're not alone - as in at least I know one person who agrees with you that CFB will not "be quite the same".

I like(d) the amateur nature of the game; students who went to class with me, went to class with my son, drove whatever they or their parents could afford, had a bit of hungry humility and modesty. And attended M because they loved the school and its traditions.

A frosh showing up in a G Wagon, Lambo, etc? Not my idea of amateur sport. Surely many here disagree with me for their various beliefs and reasons. Disagreement is fine. But. When the regional B1G goes to a nationwide 18 teams - for the sake of TV revenues - I'll be backing away from the sport.

As an aside? I've modified my Family Office Trusts to no longer donate named/any funds to M coaching positions. I'm sad about it- very sad as it was a constant, legacy wish for many decades, a well loved and rich tradition. Going forward? I'll watch some games, root for the "good guys" --- and find some other passion that meets my ideals for amateur sport.

I am complete. This season's joy will last a LONG time for me. I was 18 during 97. At the time I had no idea how difficult it was. After that college football changed as well. Then we hit a long shit show. Everything culminated for me this year. I am still on a HIGH! Go Blue!

I can't quit Michigan football, but last year likely the nadir of my fandom for various reasons:

1) The traditions of college football that I grew up with have mostly been eradicated, and what little remains gets whittled away year by year. 

2) I still love tailgating and watching games with friends and fellow alums, but the in stadium experience gets worse every year with tv timeouts, stupid scheduling and in game nonsense. 

3) Plus you have the ever increasing absurdity of decisions from the Big Ten and the NCAA.

4) And now they have completely cheapened the meaning of the Game by setting up a stupid system where in there is a chance that the 2 teams could play 3 times in a single year and often at least twice per year.  

That is what made the 2023 season so amazing and special.  It was the last time that each single game had so much importance and meaning, particularly down the stretch.  

Yes, I was saying so before the season started.

I’ll still pay attention but this does indeed feel like the end of something for me. Kinda has to be. I simply don’t have the time and energy anymore. This season, particularly the signgate era, did not have a good effect on my professional life. And it surely didn’t help my family life, either, although winning it all brought everyone a whole lot of joy.

Shane?

We're not going to have a copy of this past season next season, even if Harbaugh had stayed. Even though we can grasp that intellectually, it will hard emotionally for a lot of people here. I'm not looking forward to the kind of gloom and doom that I know will follow (because I've been here for 15 years and I've seen every kind of gloom and doom there is). If it gets bad, I'll keep my distance. But I'm 100% rooting for Sherrone to have a great season, and to grow into the role. I do expect some growing pains. 

The Rich Rod/Hoke years got me to dial things back.  Still, I just renewed my season tickets because I enjoy the ride and look forward to the next chapter.

Just wait until the regular season ends and the playoff drama of "what 3 loss team deserves to be in the playoff over another 3 loss team" begins. Lol.

College Football isn't going to be the same moving forward.

I already hit where you are at after the 2016 screw job in Columbus. I was so livid over UM getting shafted by the officials in that game...and then I realized that none of it actually mattered. I watched college football for one last season in 2017 but haven't watched a game since that year. Additionally, I am now a VERY casual fan of UM football (that is the only sport I still pay any attention to btw) and I am MUCH happier as a result. 

Seeing UM these last three years has been strange for me because I have been so blase about it all. Before 2016, I would have been ecstatic with the wins over OSU, the Big Ten championships and trips to the playoffs culminating in the ultimate "high": A national championship season. But for me, my reaction has largely been "Well, isn't that nice for those young people (meaning the players on the team)."

I have actually decided to stop following UM altogether (it's a process and I am still weaning myself off of MGoBlog) as this is the perfect time to ride off into the sunset. As you stated re: NIL and transfer portal, college football feels no different than the professional game to me now and I lost interest in all professional sports a long time ago.

Harbaugh is gone, NIL and the portal have made the game little different than the pros, I am not a fan of the expanded playoffs and we appear to be moving to just a few super conferences. None of those things appeal to me, so I am signing off. Of course, we will see how I feel in late August.

Yup 

Is this the Michigan Basketball Board?!

Don't like what's going on in CFB at all , but also can't wait for Texas to come to the Big House.

Yep. Was the promise I made to myself. Can't think of a better time to dial it way back. Been a fan for a very long time. 

If a person is at a bar telling me they are going to quit drinking while taking shots I doubt them.  If you are commenting about quitting NCAA football in February,  while on a board essentially about football I have my doubts.

Yes, to a degree.

I have a 16 month old that has put my wife and me through the wringer so this past season was even somewhat difficult to follow as closely as I once did. My wife would give me some time to watch games/let me take over the TV for the night games when she'd otherwise probably want to watch something more enjoyable.

So given that, I'll probably opt to skip most of the games that will end up being 31-10 snooze-fests.

Additionally, just the way the sport is going makes it less appealing. I think players should be paid, but the complete lack of coherent rules and enforcement make the whole sport a bit of a joke. There used to be some semblance of cloak and dagger, but now it's Miami straight up buying guys to then lost 4 games/season. The few players who want to play for a specific school outside of mostly monetary reasons has declined and you can feel the lack of loyalty to a program that the fans have. Right or wrong, that's just how it is.

The playoff has made the regular season less important and that was one of the most exciting factors that CFB had over the NFL. The Lions lose a week 5 game to the Eagles? Ok, whatever. Michigan loses a week 7 game to PSU and that might be all it takes to end the run. While there are downsides to that model, it increases the drama every single week. Now, if I miss a game that they lose to Oregon? No big deal. It incentivizes me to not care as much on a week to week basis.

Plus, the game experience is just bad now. There are so many damn commercials and I just can't sit through 3 hours of shit to watch 25 minutes of action.

90%+ of the time (well, 60% of the time in a few outlier cases, like Nick Saban's stint at Alabama, the 2000s era Patriots, or whatever NBA team is this particular decade's dynasty) your favorite college or professional team will NOT win the ultimate championship.  

Quite often, that team will fail in a spectacularly bad, messy or painful fashion.

Given that ... I get it, if a fan wants to say "my team finally reached the destination, I'm done!"

But to me, being a fan is mostly about the year-to-year journey.  A different adventure every year.

Not only am I not doing this, I am doubling down on fandom.  LFG.

I've been thinking the same thing but then something will happen and then

I don't have the will to actually follow through with it but everything I used to really love about college football is going away. I loved dynasties and coaching trees and the deep lore. I loved the pageantry and the traditions. I liked the regionality and the sectional nature, where teams from far away played different sorts of ball and had their own traditions and rivalries and lore. All that is gone. Coaches who've spent their whole careers in the Midwest just up and leave a school like fucking Notre Dame for SEC money, games against Purdue are being replaced with teams like UCLA I care fuck all about. 

At the end of the day if it is just about football, the NFL is a better product. At the bare minimum, they don't shove nearly as many ad breaks into every broadcast. I used to loathe the plastic nature of the league but if we're just headed for a super league in CFB anyway, it's going to be just as plastic. My hope is that when all the dust settles my other alma mater, Northwestern, will be left out and can go play in some sort of reconstituted version of D3 with all the other leftovers and that might be a closer approximation of what I loved about college football. In the meantime, I've been kind of enjoying getting back into the NFL for the first time in years with the Lions last season. 

But then there's the Michigan of it all, what it has meant to me over the years. It's how I bond with my dad despite serious political and cultural differences. It's what spurred me to school, where I met my best friends and my wife. The fandom has been such a deeply ingrained part of me as a person that I don't know that I can ever truly let go even when so much of the joy has gone. At least we had this season, this last season where things at least resembled everything that came before. I can cling to this when I'm watching us play Florida in the Dr. Pepper College Super Bowl presented by Capital One and Taco Bell in 10 years time. 

I do feel some contentment knowing it's almost impossible for Michigan football to ever be more fun than the 2021-2023 run. I think that was the peak for us. Maybe Michigan will win another title in our lifetimes, but I'm not sure it'll ever be as great as that one so I'm just enjoying this time for what it is

I'll continue to enjoy Michigan football as many of us will, but it definitely feels like I feel less burden and stress to see us succeed. That itch got scratched

Me

It’s absolutely hilarious to imagine someone posting this if JJ and Harbaugh were still here. Just say you’re afraid they might not be great next year it’s ok. 
 

This thread is OSU level soft which is a bummer. 

Nope. After the 2011 Cardinals came back in game 6 I realized almost nothing they do in the future could top being down to their last strike in a World Series game, twice, and come back and win. So now it’s all gravy. I’m with you on this one. Time to live and enjoy whatever comes our way. 

Based on the title, I want to just write “hell no” but your title and post ask completely different questions, so now I’m forced to articulate a response. Rude!

The desire to retreat in the face of adversity is sickness. Go die in a hole, if you like, with your memory of this year’s glory as a binky. You won’t be alone, I’m sure, but we’ll keep going.

EDIT: then again, reviewing some of the prior comments here, some people evidently have an unhealthy fixation with this stuff and maybe will be better off taking 20-30% off the top

I'll still follow the team to some degree, but I'm not making it appointment viewing anymore. I'm glad the players are finally starting to get a cut, but otherwise the rapacious commercialization of college football has been strangling my fandom for quite some time. I almost quit watching after the 2021 UM-MSU game because of how painful the viewing experience has become, but then Michigan went on like a 35-2 run and I stuck around to see how it ended. 

No, you are not alone, and yes, I agree with everything you said and am doing this.  Season ticket holder for 46 years, not renewing (my sister is considering taking the tickets).

All of the reasons you mention, plus two more:

• I can't stand the stadium experience anymore. The DJ, MC, and constant noise, even during timeouts, makes it difficult to even have a conversation. A couple of years ago, the alumni band (which was not allowed to take the field during a halftime show focused on inclusion), was stepped on by the piped-in music every time they tried to play. Tired of going to the games and getting angry about this. After the Rose Bowl, Brian wrote about how refreshing that stadium experience was, and I couldn't agree more.
• We live 4 hours away from AA. An afternoon game generally requires an overnight stay, and a night game requires even more advance planning.  I can't wait for the week before to know what time the game is.

The 2023 season was epic, and like Jim Harbaugh, I'll always love Michigan, but taking this opportunity to check out.

I went into this season thinking that this would be the last season where college football resembled anything like the game I grew up loving and have followed zealously my whole adult life. Not that money wasn't a driver of the game, but it's now taken all the fun out of it. To wit:

1. Conference expansion. I like the regional element of college football. I didn't like Maryland and Rutgers joining the B1G. Hell, I didn't like Penn State joining. It's gotten out of hand and has ruined regional rivalries by either canceling them or watering them down. I hate the idea that we might play OSU three times a year.
2. Winning the B1G has become meaningless. It has always been, for me, the biggest deal. 
3. The importance of the OSU game has been attenuated. 
4. The endless commercials during a game.
5. The idiotic hypocrisy of the NCAA and the B1G and Michigan's unwillingness to stand up to them.
6. NIL/Pay for play. We get slapped for a cheeseburger while OSU openly tampers with and buys players. Insane.
7. Harbaugh realizing that at least the NFL has a salary cap, which levels the playing field some.

It felt to me all season that we were at the end of something. This team was a joy to watch, and they seemed to embody the less mercenary more school oriented aspect that makes college football COLLEGE football and not simply a minor league for the NFL. All pretense has been washed away. It's increasingly difficult to defend how putatively academic institutions are conducting themselves. 

So I went into the season in "last hurrah" mode. And what a last hurrah it turned out to be.

Not sure how I will feel come August when the rhythm of football returns, but right now I think I can wash my hands of the whole enterprise.

Not this guy who was in utero at the first Bo v Woody iteration of The Game in 1969. B1G Champs all four years while I was an undergrad. In person at the Rose Bowl on 1/1/98 and NRG this year for the two national championships in my lifetime. I'll continue to hail to the conqu'ring heroes and sing the Yellow & Blue at the end of every game at the Big House.

Go Blue! Beat Ohio!

No chance. Never give in. Will always back the Michigan Wolverines. 

I concur with the general sentiment that the trajectory for college football is downward.  There is very, very little hope that the trajectory will change.  I expect college football to be a shell of itself in a few years.  

NCAA FBS Football tracks AAA baseball in that it is a combination of a few future big league stars mixed with a bunch of guys who will be happy to get a cup of coffee and even more guys who will never make it.  Of course AAA baseball is a second or third tier spectator sport.  I am not saying the quality is terrible or that people shouldn't watch, just that not that many do and the revenues it generates are quite modest.  NCAA FBS Football has done much a better as a spectator sport and revenue generator due to the deep ttradition, the facade of "amateur scholar-athletes" and the passion of alumni and fans.  With 18 team (and growing) conferences and other changes, the tradition is being hammered. Huge TV contracts, bloated AD staff, players switching schools constantly and all of the NIL money starting to slosh around, the facade of amateurism has been smashed. That brings us to fan/alumni passion, which is really the topic here.  The loss of tradition and the reality that the players really are minor league players is dousing the flames of fan passion rather quickly.

In this view, college football looks destined to fall from its lofty peak and become nothing more than a minor league. Add in the general demographic headwinds that football has (a mostly older audience) and it's hard to see this not occurring. The counterpoint is that college baseball does exist.  In some parts of the country it is quite well received.  It doesn't generate the revenues of football, but it does have passionate fans and does a good job of keeping the college feel.  

Where does it end? I lean pessimistic and am very happy that this era ended on a high note for Michigan.

As an analogy, this kind of reminds me of the end of Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya, after accomplishing his lifelong goal of getting vengeance for his dead father , confessed that he did not know what to do with himself.  
 

I had only paid a lot of attention to Michigan again about 2 years ago after being hardcore from 88 to around 2018. I will probably tail off again, mostly because this university continues to show sports isn't THAT important to it. Nil is going to really hurt this program and will not be as highly competitive going forward because the lack of leadership. Michigan has NEVER been proactive and that is going to destroy what has been built. Hope I'm wrong but things will have to change, and soon.

Yaup, with you Nashville 

Pac 12 done, super conferences on the way, player contracts, buying any player a team wants, salary cap...and so on

Not saying I wont watch, not saying I wont care, but all the other emotional baggage will decrease big time for me, and Im low key pumped about it...BECAUSE M won the last GD natty in a CFB world that somewhat resembled times of yester year. Bask in that glory, and let the chips fall as they will, but no need to get that emotionally attached anymore. 

Sad to say in a lot of ways, but this was  bound to happen to a large chunk of fans. 

i will still be a fan, I’ll watch, I’ll rep the gear and still enjoy the wins,
 

Ummm, not exactly RIDING OFF INTO THE SUNSET!!!

I have committed to still being a fan of Michigan, but I am riding off into the sunset. I played in college, coached for a bit, but UM football was kind of my last and most personal connection to the sport. At this point in my life as I enter into new scholarly work and professional development, I can't really commit the same energy to football. This season was the perfect send off for my intense fandom and the deep connection I had to the game. I'll still lurk around here and check scores, likely take my family to a game again at some point, but I'm not following the sport with the detail and rigor I once did. I will not be following recruiting or watching tape of other teams. This team gave me the perfect way to go out as an intense fan. I will still proudly wear my 97 and 23 National Champs hats and the Michigan gear I've obtained over the years. 

Long story short, yes I will be, but I will always be rooting for the University and the program and all of those involved.